Amazon’s proposed data center project in Pecos County, Texas, is generating environmental concerns because of the scale of emissions that could be produced by its planned power infrastructure.

According to The New York Times, Amazon intends to construct an on-site power plant to support the data center. The facility would rely on natural gas and has reportedly been permitted to emit as much as 33 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.

If it operates at that permitted level, the power plant could become the largest single source of climate pollution among power plants in the United States.

The project highlights one of the major challenges created by the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence: the enormous amount of electricity required to operate modern AI systems and the data centers that support them.

As technology companies race to build increasingly powerful computing infrastructure, concerns are growing over how the industry will meet its energy demands while limiting its environmental impact.

Source: TechCrunch